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Summary

Lambda Legal has filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada on behalf of eight same-sex Nevada couples arguing that Nevada’s constitutional ban on marriage equality violates the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Plainitffs argue that Nevada’s exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage, while relegating them to the second-class status of domestic partnership, violates their right to equal treatment under the U.S. Constitution. This discriminatory system stigmatizes same-sex couples and their families, and treats them as inferior.

History

April 10, 2012 Lambda Legal, joined by pro bono co-counsel from O’Melveny & Myers LLP and Snell & Wilmer LLP, files the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada

August 10, 2012 Court defers motion to dismiss and agrees to hear the case. Court also grants a motion by the Coalition for the Protection of Marriage to intervene as a defendant in the lawsuit.

February 10, 2014 Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval seeks leave to withdraw the brief submitted on his behalf by Nevada Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit defending the state’s discriminatory marriage ban.

September 2014 The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit heard oral arguments in Sevcik v. Sandoval and two other marriage equality cases.

October 8, 2014 In a unanimous 3-0 decision, the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals struck down discriminatory marriage bans for same-sex couples in Nevada and Idaho only one day after the United States Supreme Court let pro-equality rulings stand in three other circuit courts.

Lambda Legal is suing in federal court on behalf of eight same-sex Nevada couples, arguing that Nevada’s constitutional ban on marriage equality violates the Equal Protection and Due Process Clauses of the U.S. Constitution.
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(Las Vegas, NV, October 9, 2014) – The Coalition for the Protection of Marriage, the organization that had been defending Nevada’s discriminatory marriage ban, today withdrew its motions before the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals seeking to prevent the Ninth Circuit’s Tuesday ruling striking down the marriage ban from going into effect.
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